Loans in China's rural areas amounted to 9.8 trillion yuan (1.49 trillion U.S. dollars) by the end of last year, up 31.5 percent from a year earlier, said a report released Monday by the People's Bank of China.

The hike in rural lending was 11.9 percentage points higher than that of all lending by financial institutions, said the report.

Among the loans to rural areas, 2.6 trillion yuan was held by rural residents, up 29.4 percent from the same period of 2009.

This increase was 8.3 percentage points lower than total loans to urban residents, largely due to urban residents spending more on buying homes in a rising housing market.